Suburbs with Soul

Friday, October 12, 2012

Cabramatta
shaped my childhood palate: moulding it with the smells of noodle soups, the
sights of fresh greens and the sounds of people slurping soup. It was a
privileged childhood…absent material wealth but abundant in flavours.

Until
I hit my teenage years, I had assumed everyone had experienced the warm embrace
of a hot noodle soup in the morning. I was shocked to hear people butcher the
pronunciation of the word pho. Whilst
I don’t speak Vietnamese, I know this all important word and the joy it can
bring.

It’s
Cabramatta, where my admiration for food began, and it is where I will begin my
journey to fall in love with Sydney again. And
the courtship starts with love it at first sight, taste and smell….pho!

Hyperbole
abounds when it comes to talking about this humble noodle soup. It’s a meal,
it’s a great way to wake up…damn it’s like a bear hug from your mum in the
morning. It is so unbelievable good…and best of all it is cheap.

The
meal below includes pho, an assortment of accompaniments (basil, bean sprouts),
a pot of Chinese tea and an iced Vietnamese coffee….for $11.

The Vietnamese coffee too,
makes me reach for the superlatives…it also keeps me wired for the rest of the
day. Super strong coffee, combined with a heap of sugary condensed milk = jet
fuel for your morning.

Admittedly, as with all good
things in life…there is a come down after the great high. Just 30 min after
finishing this meal, I’m thirsty…and waddling around from overconsumption. But
it’s a satisfied waddle.

People in Cabramatta are food
connoisseurs…not of the Michelin star variety…instead they expect and demand
the freshest of produce at the lowest price.

It means you get the best
produce of anywhere in Sydney. Sometimes on weekends, you’ll even be able to
buy from small backyard growers. It’s not technically legal but old ladies will
sit on the benches in Cabramatta with a bunch of vegetables they’ve grown in
their own garden. Just like they must have done when they were living in
Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos…and I love it. I especially love how they have defied the
council rangers all these years. Despite attempts by the rangers to move them
on and throw their produce in the bin, they keep coming back…with even more
produce.

Cabramatta is the very best
of Asia captured in a handful of main streets and a myriad of tiny laneways. That
means you not only get great produce you also get food particular to South-East
Asia that is considered ‘exotic’ in other parts of Sydney. Durians, jackfruits, rambutans, mangosteens…hard
to pronounce, sometimes hard to handle and for some people hard to smell. But
to me, delicious and sublime….and so much part of my childhood.

There is the delicious roast
duck, roast pork and chicken on display in the windows…tempting you as you walk
past.

It isn’t just food which
makes Cabramatta great, it’s also the resilience of the community. Resilience
and renewal…qualities which are probably expected from a community made up of
people of who came as migrants or refugees. I saw the resilience and renewal up
close as I went through high school.

During the 90’s, Cabramatta was
known more for her crime than her cuisine. Heroin was coursing through her
sewers. It greeted you at the train station and haunted you as you walked
through its streets, especially at night. The blue glow from all the lights
used in public spaces was the visual nightly reminder that heroin was present,
it was being injected.

Growing up, I just assumed
this was the way Cabramatta would always be…drug-ridden, gang-fighting and a largely
scared community. A fear which peaked when Australia’s first political assassination
occurred within her borders, I’ll remember being the most scared I have ever
felt following the night John Newman was gunned down outside his house. It was
an assault of our democracy, an assault on the community and totally obliterated
my sense of security. For a community who had come to Australia fleeing
political persecution, it was particularly confronting that Cabramatta hosted
Australia’s first (and hopefully only) political assassination.

Given her sordid history less
than two decades ago, the success of Cabramatta today is all the more
remarkable. The dealers at the train station have long gone. The waif-like addicts
shuffling through the streets have disappeared. The blue lights in the toilet
blocks have been replaces with white ones.

Now, we have a suburb which
is highlighted in tourism brochures, plays hosts to food tours and some of the
biggest community festivals in Australia. Just last month, almost 90000 people
converged on Cabramatta to celebrate the Moon Festival.

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Having spent a year living in Samoa, I'm finding it tough adjusting to life in Sydney. The problems are many...the dense traffic, the surge of people rushing through the city streets. A year of island life has damaged me - it has shifted my sense of normal. I'm used to sunny days, lazying by the beach and drinking coconut juice out of an actual coconut.
Whilst I’m not currently in love with Sydney, I know I used to love her. I’ve defended her fiercely against the café-culture, small-bar minded elite of Melbourne. I’ve pitched her beaches against the very finest of those found in WA (even though I’ve never been to WA). I have been her biggest cheerleader when jaded and cynical former Sydney-siders bring her down.
Remembering this, I’ve set myself a mission - to fall in love with Sydney again. From the reaches of my hazy memory, I have romantic images, not of the Harbour Bridge and Bondi beach, but of the bowls of pho in Cabramatta, the mosques in Auburn, the smell of Korean BBQ in Strathfield and the roar in Leichardt when Italy won the World Cup. It was the suburbs of Sydney which I love and it's there that I will start my courtship with this city.